Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.

It's better to repent what you enjoyed than to repent not having enjoyed anything.

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.

Life swarms with innocent monsters.

Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.

Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

Progress, this great heresy of decay.

Evil comes up softly like a flower.

A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

I felt passing over me the wind of the wing of madness.

Any man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.

A silent mouth is sweet to hear.

The People adore authority.

Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.

I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.

Remembering is only a new form of suffering.